


Signal to Noise

by Iztarshi (khilari)



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, Hordak and Entrapta have an adventure of their own, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/Iztarshi
Summary: No one told Hordak and Entrapta to clean up Beast Island. No one even told them they could go to Beast Island. But Entrapta has a robot to rescue and there’s so much there, so much the Princess Alliance could use that the First Ones just threw away. Surely no one will mind if they do a little salvage while they’re there? Especially if they send presents home?Cleaning the place up is almost incidental.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 184





	1. The First Ones' Trash

“You don’t hear it? Or feel it?” It feels like the hivemind gone bad, like sometimes before battle when some undisciplined brother lets himself fear and it spreads through nearby troops. _Shadows beget shadows. This is why you must be pure._ Hordak wants to flatten his ears against it, but to acknowledge fear is to share it and he holds his ears as still as his expression.

“Only a tiiiiny bit,” Entrapta’s hair forms pincers to demonstrate exactly how small the signal’s effect on her is. “I’m here because I want to be and there’s so much to study! And… and you’re here now. Why would I be sad?”

She’s hovering on her hair so it can feel its way across the debris around them, another lock slips back to wrap around Hordak’s wrist, steadying his steps as he follows her, and he smiles.

“I should feel that way. I have no reason to feel otherwise.”

Another lock of hair presses against his mouth, silencing him, and Entrapta turns back to regard him with sparkling eyes. “You went through a lot and you don’t have to be okay yet. I mean, Catra isn’t, or Glimmer.” She looks down, hair shuffling through the scraps at her feet to give her an excuse to do so. “A lot of people think I’m the weird one for being able to be happy after everything I did.”

“There is _nothing_ wrong with your feelings,” Hordak growls. Who has objected to Entrapta’s happiness? Do they want her to be sad?

She tugs him closer so she can replace the hair around his wrist with her hand. Even through her glove and his new armour it feels intimate enough that he can’t quite look at her.

“See, you’re always so sweet about me. You don’t have to be so hard on yourself.”

“I am not ‘sweet’.” Whatever he’s feeling now is a complicated mess that tightens his chest like an armour malfunction. But it’s not despair, not even sadness. “Ah!” His ears perk and he turns his head. “I… can barely hear it now.”

A recorder emerges from Entrapta’s hair. “Beast Island Return log 3. Observation: Talking with Hordak reduces the efficacity of the signal on him. Suggested course of action: Continue conversation.”

“Tell me about the robot we’re looking for,” Hordak suggests.

“Her name’s Rhonda and she’s a really sweet girl, you’ll like her,” Entrapta says. “She’s not as affectionate as Emily, but she’s very brave and she always… AH!” Entrapta’s cry of delight echoes as she dives to the side and yanks a blue crystal away from the wall, anchoring herself with her hair while she tugs with her hands. It comes away, black vines still drooping from it, and tendrils start to wind around her wrist.

“Be careful!” Hordak runs forward and slices the tendrils away with his claws, leaving faint scratches down her gloves.

“Thanks,” she says, grinning up at him, still trying to brush clinging vine away from the crystal. “Look at this, it’s just what I’ve been needing to fix the Salineas Sea Gate! Mermista will be so pleased. I mean, it’s a little broken, but I think its core functions can be restored.”

“Is it safe?” Hordak asks. “If it carries infection Princess Mermista would not thank us for that.”

“I don’t know. The vines are related to the signal, so they shouldn’t behave like a virus or infect tech, but they do look a bit like the ones from the murder virus I had before. Except those were red and didn’t affect organics.”

“You had… what before?”

“Oh, it made robots attack me and it made She-Ra floppy. Scorpia broke the infected crystal when we were at the Northern Reach because a bug was trying to kill Catra.”

“I don’t believe any of that was in the report.”

“It wasn’t?” She tucks the crystal into a bag she pulls from a pouch and then into her pocket. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I’ll make sure to examine that before I let it near any technology, just in case.”

Hordak’s not sure she should be letting it so near herself, but a sealed bag should be enough when she’s already scraped the vine away from the crystal. Besides, the vine is everywhere, his hand has brushed against it multiple times as he climbs no matter how he tries to avoid it. Entrapta’s at no more risk from carrying the crystal in her pocket than from having her hair twine around rocks already covered in it.

The signal rings out again, tooth-gratingly wrong, and Hordak snatches his hand away from the wall before suddenly moving vines can ensnare it. Entrapta’s hair wraps around his chest as she draws them close.

“That was a bad one,” she says.

Hordak nods, but the feeling is already receding. They emerge onto a broader path, whorls of blue and purple crystals lighting up the walls above dull red sand. There’s an eerie beauty to it.

“Are all those data crystals?” Hordak asks.

“Not all of them. I think some of the pink ones are thulite,” Entrapta says. “Ooh, we should take a look at that too. If Adora wants to go back into space she’s going to need fuel and it must have been dumped here for a reason but maybe it was just low grade?” She tugs her recorder out and makes a note to talk to Adora later then turns back to Hordak. “A lot of them are data crystals, though, and wait until you see what’s in the centre! It’s so awesome!”

Hordak had never paid much attention to Beast Island before. Preliminary reports had suggested that no one could survive there long and he had deemed further exploration not worth wasting troops on. Besides, he had had little interest in First Ones’ tech back then, preferring to work on replicating the technology he was familiar with. It had been Entrapta who introduced him to that, to the way magic and technology could be used to drive each other.

If he had paid attention, though, then salvaging even a tenth, even a hundredth, of these data crystals could have revolutionised the Fright Zone. He could have built things that interfaced with the Black Garnet and used its power to run an the defenses instead of leaving it as Shadow Weaver’s project. He’d built an Empire with a broken ship by repurposing and reusing everything he could, often several times before it reached the end of its life and was consigned to the junk yard, and the First Ones had thrown away all of this.

“We could build an army,” he says out loud, marvelling at it. “Those robots you made which required first ones crystals to work? Even with damaged crystals and a short life we could have so many more. With so much magic in Etheria’s atmosphere now they’d be even stronger, unstoppable.”

“Ooh, they _would_.” Entrapta’s data pad appears. “And if the thulite works we could power them with that too, they could go up into space and seek their targets from orbit. The guns would need to be boosted for that distance.” Her hair, which has been describing the arc of something moving into orbit, suddenly moves back towards her and smacks her face lightly. “We should definitely not build an army.”

“Of course,” Hordak says, ears twitching down in embarrassment. “That is not a worthy objective.”

The problem is, Hordak really doesn’t have an objective anymore. No, that’s not a _problem_. He’s _free_ , that’s what Entrapta had said. But freedom feels a lot like emptiness, and all anyone wants him to do is stay out of their way and not cause any more trouble than he has already. Which is good. They’re giving him a second chance, they could want revenge or servitude or any number of things.

The signal is ringing in his ears again and when he feels a vine creeping across his shoulder he lashes out with a snarl. Only to see Entrapta’s hair snaking back towards her, hurt clear on her face, the same way she’d looked when he pushed her away before, in front of She-Ra. The time he’d thought would be the last time he ever saw her when he learned what Catra had done.

“ _Entrapta._ I-I’m sorry. I didn’t…intend…”

Her hair creeps back over his shoulder forgivingly and squeezes just hard enough to be felt through the armour. “It’s okay,” she says as he finally catches his breath. “No need to panic.”

“I was not panicking,” he says and Entrapta’s merciful enough to let the blatant falsehood pass. “I am sorry, though. I thought it was a vine.”

“The signal again?” Entrapta says. “Is something bothering you? Something specific?”

“Perhaps,” Hordak says. He’s not good with words. None of his brethren are, although many are learning faster than he is. Communication with each other always happened in the hivemind and the words Prime taught them for talking with outsiders were words of praise and condemnation but not of self-expression. It’s only with Entrapta that he even tries. “I feel a little… pointless.”

“You don’t need to be useful any more. You can just be you,” Entrapta says. It’s not something he can argue, but neither does it make him feel better. Entrapta seems to realise this because her hair suddenly forms itself into two hands to cradle his face. “You’re helping me,” she says softly.

“Am I?” he asks. “You resist the signal better than I do. You could potentially get further alone.”

“You got those vines off me.” That’s true, and however much Entrapta has a tendency to survive barrelling towards anything she finds interesting, on reflection he’s glad she’s not out here alone. Her hair lifts the crystal out of her pocket, still wrapped in its clear bag. “And I will definitely need your help analysing this. Hmm. Let’s go and do that now, we should try to get back to the beach before it gets dark.”

* * *

Entrapta wishes they could have brought Darla, but if the clones need anything from Horde Prime’s ship then she’s the only way they have to get up there. Besides, Darla had wanted to stay with her administrator and Adora had agreed to take good care of her. Darla might miss Entrapta, but if they manage to purify the thulite then Entrapta can even give her a present when they get back.

What they have instead is a lightly armoured Horde transport ship which it didn’t seem like anyone would miss. There are rather a lot of them not being put to any use right now while Scorpia sorts out what to do with the Fright Zone, and this one not only got Entrapta and Hordak here but will give them a place to sleep out of range of the signal.

“We should sail around to my lab,” she says, marking down the parts of the island they searched today on her data pad. “I did bring some basic equipment but I had more set up there.”

Hordak relaxed as soon as they were on board and he’s now looking back at Beast Island, studying its crystal-studded outline with definite curiosity. “You have a lab?” he asks.

“Of course! I built it near the shore in a place where the signal was weak. Once I’d built Rhonda and made it to the centre I abandoned it a bit. I can’t wait to show you the centre, but we’ll need Rhonda to get there, I hope she stayed near the coast or finding her is going to be really difficult.” She slips into the control room through a window and Hordak leans in after her, watching as she sets a course.

* * *

The lab Entrapta built was a natural cave that had been small enough to clean out and then extend forward with sheet metal. Inside, it’s full of scrap metal she’d salvaged, pieces of robots the First Ones had dumped and a few bits of wrecked Horde ships that had evidently washed up. There’s a pile of blankets and cushions in a corner.

“Homey, isn’t it?” she says, thinking partly of Dryl but mostly of Hordak’s tech crowded sanctum.

He smiles at her softly. “Yes.”

Entrapa slips between a robot arm and a rusting engine and puts her data pad down on her workbench. She tips the crystal out beside it, hair already reaching for a microscope. “Let’s get to work.”

Working with Hordak isn’t quite the same as it used to be and the subtle differences gradually start to grate on Entrapta. He’s always been quiet, content to listen to her talking her way through their experiments until he has something specific to add. He’s always worked more steadily than her, picking a task and sticking to it while she whirls around him (at least until he gets stuck on a problem and works himself into a temper instead of trying something different). Letting her take the lead on something that’s more her area of expertise than his isn’t anything new, either.

But he’s quiet, attentive and obedient and nothing about that feels right. Maybe she should ask him if he’s okay? She’d rather open that conversation once she’s had a chance to log and review the data and form at least a hypothesis about what’s bothering her.

She just needs a moment. Also those salvaged bits of navigational computer she’d stashed up near the ceiling. Whipping her hair around the shoulder joint of the robot arm she flings herself up towards the niche where she thinks she last saw those.

A black and red sawblade whips out and she only narrowly avoids having it disembowel her. It still leaves a shallow wound across her abdomen and startles her into letting go with a shriek. Hordak catches her with a cry of his own, pulling her against his chest and hissing up at the ceiling with his ears pinned back.

“I don’t remember putting a trap there,” Entrapta says, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Hordak continues to glare at the ceiling, turning slowly to follow something she can’t hear. “It is a living thing,” he says. “And it will regret harming you.”

“Hmm.” Entrapta wiggles herself into a more comfortable position, perched on his arms rather than cradled in them, and tries to follow his gaze. “Pookas hunt in packs and prefer to congregate where the signal is strongest, but a lot of the other creatures on the island try to avoid it. It was probably hiding out in here away from it.”

Hordak pulls out a blaster and shoots it at the ceiling, being rewarded with a chittering wail and a thunder of falling machinery that makes Entrapta flinch. She grabs his wrist before he can shoot again.

“Hordak! Please don’t shoot my lab!”

He tries to shake her off, hampered by the fact that he’s also trying not to drop her. “There is a hostile entity within its perimeters.”

“I know, but I still don’t want you to blow it up.”

He glares at her, ears back and eyes blazing, and she files away her own feeling of relief at the sight to analyse later. “Fine, then,” he growls. “What do you propose?”

* * *

Entrapta’s proposal requires a trip back to the ship for supplies, with a brief interlude for first aid when Hordak realises she’s still bleeding, but it’s not long before they’ve got it assembled. What it is, is a mop wearing Entrapta’s mask and a stuffed Horde uniform, crossed bandoliers over its chest. Hordak is regarding it with such bafflement that Entrapta wishes Emily was here to record it.

“And this will work?” he asks.

“It’s not very complex, but given the creature’s previous behaviour I predict a ninety percent chance of success,” Entrapta says, picking the mop up in her hair. “Here we go. Can you locate it?”

Hordak looks upward and turns his head from side to side before pointing. “It’s not moving much,” he says.

“Good, then it’s probably found a new hiding place.” Entrapta lifts the mop up level with the space between the tops of the machinery piles and the ceiling. “Am I in the right area? I—”

There’s the sound of something slicing fabric, a noise like a bursting water balloon, and something black and red hits the floor wrapped in green goo. It’s a mantis-like creature as tall as Entrapta, bladed forearms firmly stuck to both each other and the remains of the mop. It hisses and keens, scrabbling around trying to get its legs under it, until Hordak grabs it by the back of the neck and puts it on its feet.

“A mantisaur,” Entrapta says. “Fascinating. I’ve never seen a baby before.”

“A baby?” Hordak says.

The creature backs itself into a corner, trying to scrape the goo off its bladed front legs with its head. Entrapta makes a mental note to tell Bow how well his enhanced formula works.

“Oh yes,” Entrapta says. “The adults get much bigger.”

Hordak leans forward to cautiously observe the mantisaur which, with just as much caution, tips its head up to regard him back. Entrapta looks from one set of big red eyes in a pointy face to the other and says, “Aww. He looks like you.”

Hordak jerks back. “What?”

“Cute and pointy. And with a black and red exoskeleton.” The mantisaur is the same red as the sands on Beast Island, designed for camoflage, while Hordak’s is the bright red of his own eyes, but there’s a definite similarity.

Hordak sighs through his nose. “What are we going to do with it now?”

“Can’t we keep him?” Entrapta dips her hair into the tiny snacks she’d picked up while they were on the boat and offers the mantisaur a cocktail sausage. He tries to take it with his forelegs before giving up and just extending his head to bite it.

“It invaded your sanctum and very nearly killed you.”

“He didn’t know it was mine.” Entrapta offers another sausage. “And he’s so cute! Besides, it’s not very fair to kick him out when we won’t be staying long.” She feels unaccountably dejected saying that and surprisingly it’s echoed in the droop of Hordak’s ears.

“We have no need to rush things,” he says. “There are many things here the Princess Alliance could use if our salvage work is successful.”

“But, the signal,” she begins.

“It is barely audible here and not at all on the ship, it is not as if I will be constantly exposed. Besides it is… familiar to me, very similar to the hivemind. I admit, I would like to know why.”

“It is?” Entrapta pulls out her tape recorder and clicks it on, pushing the mantisaur away when it assumes this is more food and tries to bite it. “Tell me everything! How is it like the hivemind? What is the hivemind like? Does that imply a consciousness behind the signal? Multiple consciousnesses?”

Hordak smiles at her enthusiasm. “Does this mean we’re staying until you solve this mystery?” he asks.

“Until we solve this mystery,” she corrects. “But I still want to keep the mantisaur.”


	2. All Created Things

Things are pretty busy for Scorpia these days, what with integrating those of her people who want to come back from living as refugees in Sweet Bee’s kingdom with those of the Horde who don’t want to leave the only home they’ve ever known. Fortunately Scorpia understands the Horde pretty well, most of them aren’t bad people they’re just people like her who gave their loyalty to someone who didn’t deserve it. Including Hordak, if she really thinks about it, because man, Horde Prime sucked.

Scorpia stops to rub the back of her neck for a moment as she thinks about just how much he sucked and has her thoughts interrupted by the clatter of someone emerging from the vents. It’s a pretty nostalgic sound, especially when Scorpia turns to look and sees Entrapta upside-down and waving.

“Hi, Scorpia,” she says. “Just a minute.” She vanishes back into the vent and her hair lowers a large crate out of if a moment later before she follows. “Here, some of this is for you.”

Scorpia clasps her pincers together under her chin. “You brought me presents?” she squeals.

Entrapta takes a moment to process and then nods. “Yes. There are also presents in there for Mermista and some rocket fuel for Adora. We’ve included instructions on installing Mermista’s, you should show them to Bow, he’ll understand.”

Scorpia levers open the top of the crate with one claw and finds crystals neatly wrapped in clear wrapping. The largest bundle is marked for Mermista in handwriting that she’s seen on only the most important mission briefings in the past.

“We’ll bring more for you next time,” Entrapta says, as Scorpia retrieves her own relatively small bundle of crystals. “I need to ask. How open are you to using the Black Garnet as a power source for your kingdom? It may significantly reduce the amount of electricity you can command directly.”

“Um, pretty open?” It’s cool being able to shoot lightning, but mostly because it marks her as a real princess and means the garnet accepts her. It’s not like there are everyday situations where she really _needs_ to shoot lightning. Providing power for her people would be a good thing for her to do, what a princess ought to do, and… yeah, that’s pretty cool actually! She can be a great princess! “Yeah. Yeah! I’d like that.”

“That’s great then! We’ll deliver schematics on that next time I stop by for tools and supplies. Although I might go to Dryl next time, Hordak just wanted some of his stuff.”

“Wait.” Scorpia’s had her claws full and she’s often pretty out of the loop, it’s not like she’s even got to see Perfuma much since Perfuma’s got her own kingdom to attend to, but she’d thought Entrapta was in Dryl. “You’re not living in Dryl?”

“Oh no, Hordak and I are on Beast Island.”

“Really? But, with the signal and everything. And the pookas and the razorfins and… everything?” That’s harsh, way harsher than anything Scorpia expected Adora to dish out, when it seemed like everyone was getting a second chance. Especially for Entrapta! Who had, okay, kind of commited some war crimes but her heart had always been in the right place.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” says Entrapta. “Working things out with Hordak is still a bit complicated for now so it’s nice to not have other complicated people around. There’s so much that’s fascinating, we’re trying to figure out why the signal feels like a hivemind and I still haven’t shown Hordak the centre yet. Also we have a pet mantisaur. Hordak says he’s not a pet, but he also set up a trap to catch bugs for him because he likes those better than sausages, so I think the data supports him being a pet.”

“That sounds… fun?” Scorpia says.

“Yes, it is. Anyway, I’ve got everything I came for so I have to go now. Enjoy your presents.” Entrapta disappears up into the vents with as little ceremony as she came, hair staying behind for a moment to wave goodbye.

Scorpia looks down at the crate and scratches her head. She’ll have to deliver the rocket fuel to Adora and while she’s doing it she’ll ask about clemency for Entrapta.

* * *

The day they find Rhonda begins with the mantisaur grabbing Hordak’s arm as soon as he steps onto the beach and trying to drag him backwards into the lab.

“Stop that,” Hordak says, deliberately walking towards the lab slowly to prove he’s not being pulled. “I will not neglect to feed you.”

The mantisaur chitters and then, when Hordak has nearly reached the lab, lets go and darts for Entrapta who is planning the day’s route on her data pad. Hordak grabs the mantisaur firmly by the back of the neck and sits it down on the rocky beach.

“No,” he says. The mantisaur has been acting increasingly tame since they started feeding it, but its grasping legs are still vicious sawblades and Entrapta does not have armour. The creature whines and scrabbles its legs under it, then hides its face against Hordak’s leg.

Hordak drags it into the lab, where it eats the bugs from the trap eagerly enough but then tries to get between Hordak and the doorway when he goes to leave. “Spoilt creature,” he tells it, pushing it aside so he can join Entrapta.

“Are you ready?” Entrapta asks. “We’re going to have to go a bit further in today, but I’ve planned a route that has multiple ways back here in case we run into pookas.”

Hordak checks his blaster and nods. “I am ready.”

* * *

The route Entrapta has planned goes inwards through several narrow gaps where she balances them both with her hair as they climb before they emerge into a clearing, familiar blue and pink crystals casting an eerie light over red sand and black vines. In the middle of it lies the huge, slumped shape of a robot, the dusky purple and silver of its casing nearly obscured by vines.

“This is amazing,” Entrapta says, a recorder emerging from her hair as she approaches. “Beast Island Return log 10. It’s a good thing we checked the crystals I sent to the Princess Alliance so thoroughly. Previously the depressing effect of the signal and subsequent entanglement by vines was only witnessed with organics despite the vines also clinging to the discarded tech on the island. It seems a machine sufficiently advanced to experience such things is also affected, which is a truly fascinating effect. And.” She pauses, tape recorder drooping away from her mouth. “Very bad.”

“How sturdy is she?” Hordak asks. “Can we risk burning them away with a blaster?”

“We might have to alter it for a wider but less intense beam,” Entrapta says.

Her hair forms itself into a bench in front of her so she can lay the blaster and a variety of pieces on it. Hordak picks the blaster up and starts to remove the head. The faint ringing of the signal picking up causes his ears to twitch and he grits his teeth. Maybe it’s just because they’re further in, but it feels like it’s going to be a bad one.

The robot moans, and turns her head slightly towards them. There’s no face, just a large purple windshield.

“Rhonda? Can you see me?” Entrapta asks. “I’m going to get those vines off you, girl. But you’re going to need to stand up too, or at least let me into your cockpit so I can drive you. I know it’s hard, but do you think you can do that?”

The signal comes again and Rhonda falls still, even the small movements of her head too much for her. Entrapta drops the pieces she was working on onto her hair and pushes them towards Hordak, turning her body towards Rhonda and reaching out to touch her through the vines.

“I’m sorry,” Entrapta says. “I mean, I had to leave, a lot of people needed me, but I’m still sorry I left you here. I didn’t forget you, I was always going to come back, and I’m so proud of you. I couldn’t have survived here without you and I couldn’t have got away and you’ve been…” she rubs Rhonda’s nose, arm disappearing into the mass of vines as she does. “…so brave. Thank you for waiting for me.”

Hordak’s hands are shaking and he doesn’t know why. It’s ridiculous, he’s not jealous that Entrapta cares about one of her robots, he never felt like that about Emily. It’s just the signal ringing in his ears, making it hard to think. Besides, Entrapta would say nice things to him, has and will say nice things to him, even though she didn’t create him the way she did Rhonda.

_His creator was not proud of him and will never be. His creator was not grateful that he had waited or impressed by his courage in surviving. His creator had called him an abomination, unworthy and wretched, and he had proved it true. He had turned against the one who made him, the one he would have served above everything, and he had killed…_

“Hordak!” Entrapta’s hands are on his shoulders, her hair rearranged to hold her at eye level with him. “Stay with me!”

“I killed my brother.” The words are faint and incredulous, sometimes he still can’t believe it happened.

Entrapta shakes him. “He was _not_ your brother.”

“He made me. I exist only because of him.”

“That doesn’t have to mean anything,” she begins and then stops, eyes going wide with horror as she looks into the shadows around them and sees dozens of brilliant eyes looking back. “Oh no.” Her hair flings itself around both of them, pressing them back against Rhonda’s windscreen. He can hear how hard her heart is beating. “Hordak, please, don’t do this now or we’re going to get eaten. And I really don’t want to get eaten!”

Something clicks behind them and they tumble backwards.

“Rhonda!” Entrapa yells, scrambling to her feet in such a cramped space she has to use her hair to avoid standing on Hordak. “Yes!”

The vines around Hordak are severed when Rhonda swings her cockpit closed and he sits up, shaking off the remains and wishing it was as easy to shake off the dazed lost feeling they’ve left him with. Entrapta’s hair is filling the cockpit, switching dozens of different controls and taking time to pat the dashboard too. He pulls his knees against his chest and tries to stay out of her way.

“We’re heading back to the beach,” Entrapta says. “The signal should be weak there.”

Rhonda runs, under her own control or Entrapta’s, in a fast lope. It’s not quite fast enough to outpace the pookas but they drop away as the signal weakens, apparently unwilling to hunt without its aid.

The beach is empty of both pookas and vines, but the mantisaur practically tackles Hordak as soon as he sets foot on the beach and succeeds in knocking him over while Entrapta checks Rhonda’s joints. Hordak puts a hand in the centre of the triangular head looking down at him and says, “You did warn me.”

* * *

Entrapta carries Hordak on board the ship despite his protests and then has to go back for Rhonda, who unfortunately can’t be carried and has to be coaxed. She barely fits on the deck but once she’s there she settles down with a relieved rumble.

Entrapta pats her side with a pigtail. “You power down and rest for a bit. We’re outside the signal here so you don’t need to worry about that. And I’ll check your programming later, it’s going to be really interesting to see how that’s been affected.”

Rhonda makes an affirmative sound and dims her lights.

Next stop is the galley and when she enters Hordak’s cabin she has a bowl of soup with her. “I didn’t make this and it isn’t tiny, so it’s probably better,”she announces. Hordak, seated on his bed and looking exhausted, still turns away from the spoon like an offended cat. Entrapta puts the soup down on the bedside table and swings herself up to sit beside him.

“We’ll need to do another signal log,” she says. “If you can describe the effects and list the similarities and differences to the hivemind.”

“Later.”

“Yeah.” She wants to offer to take his armour off so he can get some sleep, but she knows what it’s like to need a bit of a shell when dealing with the world. She’s still got her gloves on and her mask ready to pull down. She fiddles with it now. “The signal got to me in the end too. Last time I was here. It was fine as long as I was excited about tech, but then Adora told me I had to leave and… I guess there was a lot I just hadn’t been thinking about.”

“That does sound like the hivemind,” Hordak says. “If you do not think about it, it does not exist.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide my thoughts from anyone else. Not even the signal. Just from myself.” She pulls her mask down to say the next bit. “It felt like everyone left me behind. Even though Adora was right there trying to take me with her, somehow I couldn’t process that data.”

“I am sorry. If I had not believed Catra’s lies so easily, if I had not been such a fool…”

“That’s not what I mean.” She leans closer, just the outsides of their arms touching. “You’ve seen my lab. You’ve seen Rhonda. I could have built a boat if I’d wanted to.” She feels him tense to pull away and quickly puts her gloved hand over his, lifting her mask with a lock of hair. “But I’d vanished and then the portal opened. I figured out you didn’t know where I was, but I didn’t consider Catra might have told you I was a traitor. It seemed like you hadn’t looked for me, like you’d tried to leave me behind as well.”

His hand turns under hers, their fingers twining together. “You are crying. May I touch your face?”

Entrapta sniffs. “Go ahead.”

A thumb pad delicately brushes tears from her cheek, claw turned carefully away from her eye. It feels shivery, the way light touches can sometimes, just on the edge of too much but not actually bad. “What I mean is,” she says, gathering her thoughts again. “I should have known better too.”

“Am I meant to forgive you? You have done nothing wrong. I spent decades attempting to return to Prime, you had no reason to believe I would do otherwise.”

 _Decades_ Entrapta thinks. She understands suddenly what he means about feeling pointless, what’s changed when they work together. Back then, working on the portal, they’d been equally passionate, equally driven, but she’d been driven by curiosity and scientific discovery. Hordak had been motivated by a person. By love, in however desperate and painful a form, for someone who no longer exists.

* * *

Adora’s sitting in Glimmer’s room discussing the logistics of rebuilding with Glimmer and Bow while Catra sits in her lap being no help at all, when Scorpia walks in carrying a crate.

“Hi, sorry, don’t mean to interrupt. Just delivering this,” Scorpia says.

“You’re not interrupting,” Glimmer says warmly. “Come and sit down. Do you want a drink?”

Catra smiles at Scorpia but her tail suddenly wraps very tightly around Adora’s waist. No matter how easily Scorpia had forgiven her, the guilt and fear of hurting her further remain.

“So, what’s in the box?” Adora asks.

“Some crystals and stuff, I don’t know, Entrapta said to give it to Bow. It sounded important,” Scorpia says.

“Wait,” Bow interrupts, sitting up suddenly. “You saw Entrapta?”

“Uh, yes.” Scorpia looks anxious, claws clacking together. “She just stopped by to drop them off, I’m sure she didn’t do anything else. Is she not meant to leave Beast Island?”

Adora leans forward so suddenly she dumps Catra off her lap. “Entrapta’s on _Beast Island?_ ”

“She said she’s been salvaging stuff with Hordak. I thought you’d sent her there although it did seem like a pretty harsh punishment. Really harsh, actually, I was going to ask you to reconsider since I don’t think they deserve something like that. But, you didn’t send them there?”

“No!” Adora says. “What are they even doing there?”

“Salvaging stuff, by the looks of it,” says Bow, pulling a package of crystals from the crate.

“I wouldn’t say Hordak doesn’t deserve it considering he sent my Dad there,” Glimmer says. “But we didn’t sentence him to anything.”

“We’ve got to go and check they’re okay,” Adora says. “I can’t believe this.” She’d been worried enough when she realised Hordak and Entrapta weren’t in Dryl, Hordak especially has enemies and she didn’t save him just so someone else could hurt him later.

“I can,” Catra says. “Typical Entrapta. Always in the most worrying place available even when you try to warn her away.”

“I can take us now,” Glimmer says, holding out a hand to Adora.

Bow takes Glimmer’s wrist. “Considering we don’t know where they are on Beast Island, _maybe_ we should take Darla instead of teleporting around it at random?”

“Good plan,” Adora says. “Let’s go.”


End file.
